Announcements

On 18–19 January the European Union Physical Activity and Sport Monitoring System (EUPASMOS) project was launched in Budapest, Hungary. The project aims to establish a standardised system to monitor physical activity levels and sport participation across Europe.
Following the initial work of a coordination team project participants are now collaborating to achieve the ambitious goal of a valid and reliable system to monitor physical activity and sport across Europe. A standard monitoring system will provide better information for countries to evaluate physical activity policies and strategies and enable more accurate comparisons of physical activity and sports participation between countries. This system will benefit all countries in the WHO European Region through the development and dissemination of a toolkit to help countries to implement a standardised system of monitoring and surveillance.
Read more here:

Gender inequality remains a big issue when it comes to active travel in the UK, says Sustrans. The charity has published a new report, ‘Are We Not There Yet?, revealing that women’s journeys around cities are typically shorter than men’s, use different modes of transport and are more likely to involve ‘trip-chaining’ (multi-stop journeys) which tend to be for a balance of child care, work and household responsibilities.
While women are motivated to travel actively for physical and mental health reasons, worries about their personal safety, convenience (particularly when taking multi-stop trips) and appearance are all barriers to preventing them from cycling and walking, says the report.
It looked at the travel habits and choices of nearly 2,000 women in Glasgow and combined the findings with a literature review of research on women’s travel patterns across Scotland, the UK and Europe.
The report also highlighted that few women are involved in creating transport policy and planning in the UK. Currently, transport has the lowest percentage of women in senior posts within the public sector in Scotland, with women representing only 6.25% heads of transport bodies. In addition, the transport sector accounts for only 22% of female workers UK-wide.
Read the full report here:

Cyclists in Paris no longer have to stop at every red traffic light - new rules mean that in certain circumstances they can ignore the signals and keep going. The aim is to make the city's roads much safer.